MEMPHIS MAFIA INTERVIEW WITH LARRY KING

 

Lamar Fike, Elvis' tour manager, so close to Elvis he even tried to go into the Army with him, but couldn't. Jerry Shilling still finds it hard to discuss all the time he spent with Elvis. Also Elvis's stepbrother, David Stanley, at Elvis' Graceland mansion the day he died.

Anita Wood who dated Elvis seriously for years in the 50's, even lived for a time at Graceland . It's hard to believe it, but Elvis Presley would have been 70 years old, had he lived. His birthday would have been last week. So, we have got an outstanding panel, others joining us later, we'll also include your phone calls. Let's go around first with the Mafia members. Marty Lacker is in Memphis who first met. Where did you meet? Junior High School?

LACKER: Odd. He was sort of loner. The thing we had in common, because we weren't that close, I had just moved from New York . And Elvis dressed in very flashy clothes, which was different than the kids back then. Most of the guys back then wore crew cuts and Levis and t-shirts. And Elvis wore flashy clothes, wore his collar up, his hair was a lot longer than the rest of the people. And basically, I dressed the same way, coming from New York . And the kids used to kid us about who was going to out dress who the next day.

KING: Was he singing then?

LACKER: He sang in a couple of talent shows in Memphis . But I mean, at the school. But it really wasn't known back then except for people who were close to him.

KING: Patty, how did you meet him?

KING: Lamar Fike was a member -- a close personal friend. You directed all the concert tours, Lamar?

LAMAR FIKE, ELVIS PRESLEY'S TOUR MANAGER: No, not really. I travelled with him, Larry. It was a case of -- I did most of the lights in Vegas. And when we went on the road, I'd do some of it. But, you know, we were there mainly to kind of keep everything together. At times we didn't but it was still fun trying.

KING: What was he like to work with?

FIKE: At times, very difficult, but most of the time, he was a lot of fun. You know, you're around somebody like him 24 hours a day, and you have to watch what you're doing because you become a little too familiar and you say things you shouldn't and sometimes you get in arguments. And it was a constant amount of pressure. It never really stopped. It kept you on your toes.

KING: Jerry Schilling, you were a close family friend. Did you call yourself a Memphis group, or are we calling you the Memphis Mafia?

JERRY SCHILLING: Well, it came about, Larry, I think years ago, we used to go to Vegas and wear Mo hair suits and carry guns. And the press kind of affectionately started calling us the Memphis Mafia is back in town. And we kind of liked it. We were young guys.

KING: How many people were involved in the Memphis ?

SCHILLING: Normally six to seven at one time. Probably over the years, there's been about 12, 13 guys.

KING: Did you hang out together?

SCHILLING: Oh, we lived together, Larry.

KING: Were there hangers on? Did he support you guys?

SCHILLING: Well, you know, it kind of looks that way from the outside. But on inside it was very important -- first of all, he didn't go out and hire people because they were an accountant or a tour manager, he hired people that he trusted and then you worked into the position.

KING: Oh, so you learned on the fly?

SCHILLING: Absolutely.

KING: David, you were his stepbrother. So, he was how old when you met him?

DAVID STANLEY, ELVIS' STEPBROTHER: I was just 5 years old. I moved into the Graceland Mansion in 1960 after my mother, who was divorced, married Elvis' widowed father. So, when I met Elvis Presley, I didn't know what a hound dog was, I didn't know what king was. And it was funny, when I met Elvis, I met most of these guys. I mean, Marty Lacker and Lamar Fike, I mean, you know, this is like a little hoe-down down south with the family. And, you know, I walked in, and I was the little 4-year-old snotty kid who just couldn't comprehend what was going on.

But I did understand one thing, I came from a boarding home and moved into Graceland . And I thought, this is going to be a great ride. And it really was. It was a great ride. It was a lot of good friends and a bonding. We stood up for each other, we took up for each other. And it's so cool to see my buddies and all of us get together and talk about Elvis and celebrate Elvis' birthday.

KING: Was he a good big stepbrother?

STANLEY: Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? I mean, I got a lot of attention being driven to school in a pink Cadillac everyday. I mean, when Elvis is your big brother, he was more like a father figure. He was 20 years older than I was. He taught me everything. He taught me music. He taught me how to be cooling. If there's any cool there, it came from Elvis. He taught me about girls. He taught me about spiritual matters. And all the other individuals involved. It just wasn't Elvis. You know, we're like those veterans, like World War II or Korean Veterans or Vietnam Veterans, we all experienced this unique thing. And like I said, it's so cool to get together and communicate on the level that we can about somebody we knew and loved so well.

KING: Marty, you must be the same age, right?

LACKER: I was two years younger than him. We both were born in January. I have got to say this about hangers on. We've been called every name in the book, but we've been called those names by people who have no understanding what our relationship was about.

KING: What was it?

LACKER: It was a close brotherhood. Elvis didn't have one best-friend, he had about 9 of them. And those were basically the guys from the early years.  And we grew up together. We were like brothers. The people who make statements like that, I mean, we just smile and laugh, because they have no idea what it was all about.

KING: Were you the last one to sort of join, Patty?

PERRY: No. Actually, I was there before David and Rickie. They were babies when they came to the house. I met Elvis when I was 17. He was 25 years old. He just got out of the Army.

KING: He took you in, too?

PERRY: They couldn't get rid of me.

LACKER: We tried.

KING: Were you the only girl?

PERRY: Well, I was the only female. I mean, he trusted me. We were good friends, there was no romance there.

KING: Did you want a romance?

PERRY: No, no, no, no.

LACKER: We all took shots.

PERRY: No. They were my brothers. They brought me up, they raised me, you know, they took care of me. They wouldn't let anybody near me, Larry, unfortunately.

KING: Was he difficult, Lamar? Could he be difficult?

FIKE: Yes. That's probably the nicest thing you could think of. When he got hard nosed, you knew he was there. He could make it hard on you. It's just like I said, it's hard to really separate the lines. You're friends and you're an employee and you're all the above. My thing was we just fought all the time. And I always lost. I got fired about 500 times. But it's all part of it.

KING: That's weird to be a friend and yet a worker as well.

PRISCILLA PRESLEY: Remember, he was with a bunch of guys at the same time. So they're all looking in the audience. And there was certainly a lot of fans out there.

KING: That's another thing about Elvis, he was a guy's guy.

P. PRESLEY: He was a guy's guy.

KING: Well, we know with all the women and everything, but he liked hanging around with the guys.

P. PRESLEY: Yes, he did. And that was difficult for a woman, especially a wife. You know, they were still trying to live a single life, and I was just trying to, you know, have a family life. He wanted the best of both worlds.

KING: He was extraordinarily?

SCHILLING: Very generous. The home I live in today, he bought me in '74.  You know, I think, Larry, this is how sensitive he was. He didn't talk about it. But I think he knew that I lost my mother when I was a year old. We grew up in the same neighborhood, poor part of Memphis . And in 1974, he said, you know, you never had a home, I want to be the one to give it to you. And nobody knew about it. The guys knew about it, but you know, it wasn't for publicity. And I still live there and I'll always live there.


PERRY: People, you know, they talk about birthdays, and what Elvis -- how he celebrated his birthday and Christmas. Elvis didn't celebrate just regular holidays. Elvis would give you gifts off-the- cuff. You know, if he went to the jewelry store, everybody got something. If he got a car, everybody got one. If he got motorcycles, everybody got one. What made him happy was to see the look on your face when he gave you that gift, it wasn't the gift itself.

SCHILLING: There's another thing to this that's really important, is that he also gave you time. You know, you hear about the gifts, you hear about the monetary. But you could have a problem...

KING: He would spend time with you.

SCHILLING: He'd say, do you want to talk about it? He'd come in your room. I mean, he was really a friend.

KING: Who helped him with his problems?

SCHILLING: That's the problem.

KING: All right, David, was he generous to you?

STANLEY: He was very generous to me. And I think listening to Jerry talk about the house that he lives in today, you know, my father was swept out of my life when I was a kid. My mother and father divorced in '59. When I moved into Graceland with my two older brothers, I came in with Elvis's new stepmother, Dee, which was my mother, and Elvis was a little reluctant towards my mother, because he had just lost his mother. But he looked over at me and he picked me up and he gave me a hug and he welcomed me into his family. And he took me in and he shared his life with me. He knew that my dad had been swept out of my life, and he did that replacement thing. And Jerry is so right about that. He was so silent about that. He went the extra mile to make you feel special. You know, there is a few people in the world that can pat you on the back and you're good for another 10,000 miles. One of them is a friend of mine, an associate named Bernie Dorman in Los Angeles that I work with. The other, bar none, was Elvis Presley. When he patted you on the back, you were good for another 10,000 miles, and I'm sure all the guys on the panel will attest to the same thing.

KING: Marty, was he generous with you?

LACKER: Oh, definitely. But I'll tell you something that, because Elvis was a complex and contradictory type of person. I mean, he had many sides to him. Elvis could not really bring himself to say I'm sorry to anybody. If he got mad at them or did something that he knew he shouldn't have done, and he'd get over it in 30 minutes. But...instead of saying I'm sorry, instead of saying I'm sorry, he'd buy you something… The only time I ever heard him say I'm sorry, is he said it to me because of an argument, the one and only argument we ever had. And it shocked me when he did it, because he just didn't do that. He'd go buy you something.

KING: Lamar, despite all the arguments, was he generous to you?

FIKE: To say the least. I went through a lot of cars. You know, you -- it was, you know, he got on a motorcycle tear. You know, I had a motorcycle and ran it under a bus. And you know, things like that. And we -- you know, it was like -- it was like a big playground that really got serious at times, but you know what? Somebody asked me the other day, said, would you do it over again, I said, when do we start?

KING: Is it true he would keep movie theaters open all night and take all you guys to see movies?

SCHILLING: Three movies a night. We'd go at 12:00 o'clock after it closed. We would talk out loud. It was interesting, Larry, because I think about now, and how you sat in the movie theater with Elvis was the relationship at the time. Is that right, guys?

SCHILLING: It was never spoken, but it just kind of worked that way.

SCHILLING: Elvis studied those movies. I used to wonder, why are we watching this for three times, you know, and then he would see some little eclectic thing that he picked up from that movie in his next movie.

LACKER: One of the things about him, is he'd hardly ever watch one of his movies.

FIKE: We never watched it.

LACKER: Well, he did a couple of times, but only about two or three that I knew of over 20 years. He just -- he didn't like to see himself on the screen.

KING: We'll ask in a minute what you each think might have been his strangest habit. Quick Elvis Presley story. I never met Elvis, but met Colonel Parker. Elvis Presley worked in Miami Beach once, at the Miami Beach Convention Center . He flew into Miami International Airport , a helicopter brought him over to Miami Beach at the helipad. A limo picked him up at the helipad and drove him 10 blocks to the convention center, where he performed. He got back in the limo to go back to the helicopter. When he got back to the helicopter, he said to the limo driver, "do you own this limo or do you work for the company?" And he said, "I work for the company." And he said, "you now own it." The limo driver's tip was the limo. We'll be right back.

KING: Were you very close to your father?

LISA-MARIE PRESLEY: Yes.

KING: It was a daddy-daughter kind of thing?

L.-M. PRESLEY: Yeah, very much.

KING: What was he like as a father?

L.-M. PRESLEY: Very adoring, very sweet. Very -- I mean, I knew that he was crazy about me.

KING: Did you know what he was to the world at 9?

L.-M. PRESLEY: Yeah. You know, in some weird way I definitely got sort of grooved into the whole idea early on. So I don't know how that happened. It just kind of -- it just was -- that was my life. I didn't know any different.

KING: Joining us now is Anita Wood. She's in Jackson , Mississippi . She dated Elvis for several years from 1957 to 1962. In fact, it was Lamar Fike, one of our other guests, who arranged that, is that right, Anita, for you to meet him?

ANITA WOOD: Yes. Lamar called me, he did, for Elvis.

KING: And what did he say?

WOOD: Well, I was working on a teenage show there in Memphis. And when the show was over, Lamar said, Elvis would like to meet you tonight. Well, I had a date, and so I wouldn't break it. And Lamar went ballistic. I will never forget that, Lamar. You won't go with Elvis Presley? Break your date. But I couldn't do that. So I didn't go. And I didn't think I would ever hear from him again, but I did.

KING: What was the first date like?

WOOD: Well, it was a little unusual. There was Lamar and George and Allen Fortess and Cliff Glaves,  and Louis and they were all in the car. George Klein came to the door and the lady I lived with at the time made Elvis come to the door and pick me up. We were a Southern family. You know, so he came to the door to pick me up. We went out in the limousine. And Elvis was driving.

And we drove around Memphis a lot, we stopped by a hamburger place, and sent Lamar in for I don't know how many dozens of hamburgers, Lamar, lots of them, and they ate every one of them. And then we went to Graceland . He had just bought Graceland , and he wanted to show me Graceland , and we went out there.

KING: Did he try to lure you the first night? Did he make a move?

WOOD: He tried. He wanted me to go upstairs and see his bedroom and his big magnificent bed, which I did. And we walked in the bedroom. And it was a huge bed, I mean, the biggest bed I've ever seen, bar none, even now. A huge bed. And then he tried to make a little move on me. And I said, no, really, I have to go home now. So he took me home. And that was the first date we had. He was a gentleman about it. He took me home.

KING: What was it like to be in love with? I imagine you were in love with him?

WOOD: I was. He was my first love. I met him when I was 19 years old, and I came from a very conservative family and I'd never gone steady or anything. So of course when I met Elvis, I did fall in love with him, and he did with me. We had a wonderful time, great fun together. I loved the guys. And it was just a great, like a family. You know, and I remember when David and Ricky and his brother, Billy, came there. I was there, and I remember all about that. You all were just so little back then.

LACKER: Larry, I got to tell you that Elvis' mother wanted Elvis to marry Anita.

KING: Why didn't it happen, Anita?

WOOD: He went to Germany , and while he was there, of course he met Priscilla, who was a beautiful, l  pretty young girl at 14. But when he came back, we still continued to date. And of course, you know, Elvis could make you believe anything in the world, so he had me believing that she was just a friend and her daddy was in the Army with him, and there was nothing to it whatsoever.

KING: Elvis cheated on every woman he was with. Both of the women we interviewed who were with him talked disgusted, he had one woman in one hotel and another one next door. And they all loved him and they all understood. So, Lamar, you explain that to me.

FISK: Larry, it's called the lure!

KING: It didn't bother people.

FISK: Look, can I tell you something? There was a lot to go around. You know, he wanted to keep everybody happy. But it was the lure, Larry.

KING: It was the lure. He obviously did.

The panel will be completed by Kathy Westmoreland, who also dated and fell in love with Elvis, even wrote a book about it called "Elvis and Kathy." And she's got -- we're going to talk about Elvis' passing away as well, and again I'll get back to strange things about Elvis.

KING: Cousin Elvis would have been 70 years old. Our panel. In Memphis , Tennessee , Marty Lacker, Memphis Mafia member, best man at Elvis' wedding, first met him in high school. Lamar Fike, another member of the Memphis Mafia, close personal friend of Elvis, directed all of Presley's concert tours, did the lighting, he was the man. In L.A. , Jerry Schilling, Memphis Mafia member with Elvis through the King's during happy times and at the sad as well. In Dallas, David Stanley, Elvis Presley's stepbrother. Here in Los Angeles is Patty Perry, honorary member of the Memphis Mafia, the only female who knew the King for 17 years and was one of her best friends. Anita Wood has joined us from Jackson , Mississippi . She dated Elvis for several years, stayed at the Graceland for a time.  

 

Joining us in Los Angeles , Kathy Westmoreland. Kathy dated and fell in love with Elvis, wrote a book about their relationship called "Elvis and Kathy." Why did you break up?

KATHY WESTMORELAND, SAYS SHE SLEPT WITH ELVIS PRESLEY: I didn't have too much of a say in it.

WESTMORELAND: A B flat! Someone asked me to give them a B flat. I dated him for about six months on a regular basis. Then it became obvious to me that there were other women. It just -- you know how that is.

KING: What was he like as a date?

WESTMORELAND: He was fabulous. Oh, it was fun. He was very thoughtful. Almost motherly.

KING: He didn't sleep, right?

WESTMORELAND: No. He suffered from insomnia. He was very much -- I think a lot of geniuses are like that, just can't turn it off is what he would say.

KING: Miss him?

WESTMORELAND: I miss him terribly.

KING: Let's discuss eccentricities. What, Jerry, was different about -- what was weird about Elvis? All great men have eccentricities.

JERRY: I met Elvis when I was 12 years old, he was 19. It was before he even had a hit record in Memphis. There was five older guys -- this is how unpopular he was -- trying to get off a football game. So they let the kid in grade school, they let me play. I remember walking to the huddle. I was really into James Dean and Brando, I walked into the huddle. He looked so -- he was them and everything else. It was just the look. It was like he was a rebel but he had a lovable smile. He was like a lovable rebel.

KING: What, Patty, to you was eccentricity?

PERRY: Everything about Elvis was an eccentricity. He was a baby boy, he talked baby talk, loved his mommy.

KING: Marty, what was weird for want of a better term.

MARTY LACKER, ELVIS PRESLEY'S SECRETARY: I'll tell you something that was weird about him. If he watched a football game on TV, he wore a helmet. If he watched the guys on TV riding motorcycles, he would have his motorcycle helmet on. You'd walk in and it looked funny. I mean, you walk in, Larry, he's sitting with a football helmet on. You say, good lord, Elvis, what are you doing? I'm watching the game.

KING: Lamar, would he have been a good guest on this show?

LAMAR FIKE, ELVIS PRESLEY'S TOUR MANAGER & LONGTIME CLOSE FRIEND: He'd have been hilarious. If he had had the group around, that's when it really got funny. He needed that sort of support. When he had it, it was every man for himself.

KING: What, Lamar to you, was eccentric?

FIKE: I think the most eccentric thing about Elvis is the way he treated people. He treated everybody equal. There was no up or down with him. It was essentially, you know, like, I think like God loves a buzzard as much as an eagle and I think it was a case Elvis treated everybody like that. I'm almost positive that was it. If it's an eccentricity, I don't know.